Old electricans joke: How do you tell if an electrical line is hot or not. Take your shoe or boot off and place you foot into a bucket of water then touch the bare wire. If you light up its hot.

Except that water does not conduct electricity.

However, if it's more than just plain water and has some minerals in it, then it will conduct some electricity. How much depends on the percentage of mineral content.

Technicalities aside, I'll charge up my Strobonar with a Norelco cord. Then time its recharge to ready light. Thanks, 45PSS for the straight skinny on the use of direct AC from a household outlet. And Banjo, thanks for the idea of splitting the end of the Norelco cord so it'll fit the strobe's contacts better.....(brief pause while I go do this)......and now I'm back after doing this stuff. Strobe recharged to ready light in about 5 seconds with it "Norelcoed" to a wall outlet on my workbench.

Now I think I'm ready to go with my SSG, as soon as its Grapflex 1000 come back from having it CLAed.

Last edited by bartbob on Tue Dec 07, 2010 3:08 am; edited 1 time in total

Brian,
A small spark at the sync terminals when shorted shows that the unit is powered up and is normal. The fact that you got it to fire is good.

These flash units have fairly high voltages inside so make sure the unit is fully discharged before attempting to open one. The case appears to be snap together plastic. Gently prying at a seam after removing any screws and releasing any internal latch should get the case open. The standard is to use a bump that mates into a recess or a short finger with a hooked end that catches on a lip.

I might be able to figure out what is wrong with it if I had it in my possesion.

Thanks, I'll probably have a look and see if maybe just a bad connection or something since it does charge up and did fire once. I was also wondering about the possibility of a bad flash tube (is that the correct term?)and if that is the case if replacements are available?_________________Real men use Speed Graphics and flashbulbs.

Over on http://www.southbristolviews.com is a service manual for the Graphic Strobe 500 (graflex manuals link). The computer I'm on at the moment cannot access the manuals. There is a wiring diagram which will give you and idea of what's inside your Strobonar.

Basically the battery connects to an oscillator circuit that feeds the primary of a transformer. The oscillator converts the DC to AC. The transformer steps the voltage up. The transformer secondary is changed back into DC at a much higher voltage and feeds a charge capacitor which provides the power for the flash tube. The sync cord completes the trigger circuit. The charge capacitor may have 400V to 600V on it when charged and may provide 1 to 2 amps of current, enough to cause heart problems, fibrillation or stopped heart function, if you touch the contacts when charged. The AC input goes to a bridge rectifier circuit that steps the voltage down and converts it to DC, equivalent of the batteries.
The flash tube may be defective but I don't think it would fire if it were, the trigger circuit may be bad, or most likely the charge capacitor is open giving the indication that the flash is ready but will not deliver the power when the trigger circuit is activated.

Things to look for on the circuit board are cracks in the solder around the terminal, crystallization of the solder, corroded contacts, loose wires. Dull gray solder is not a problem. If bad solder is suspected then use a 25 to 40 watt soldering iron and Rosin Core solder. Heat the contact then apply a little fresh solder and remove the heat and allow it to cool. Heat the terminal so that the solder will melt when it touches the terminal. Heating the solder and melting it onto a terminal will not make good electrical contact. Circuit boards can be damaged it over heated._________________The best camera ever made is the one that YOU enjoy using and produces the image quality that satifies YOU.

Last edited by 45PSS on Tue Dec 07, 2010 7:03 pm; edited 2 times in total

Thanks for all the advice, I'll print this page before I start working on it.
For whatever reason my computer wont access the manuals at southbristol either_________________Real men use Speed Graphics and flashbulbs.

Basically the battery connects to an oscillator circuit that feeds the primary of a transformer. The oscillator converts the DC to AC. The transformer steps the voltage up. The transformer secondary is changed back into DC at a much higher voltage and feeds a charge capacitor which provides the power for the flash tube. The sync cord completes the trigger circuit. The charge capacitor may have 400V to 600V on it when charged and may provide 1 to 2 amps of current, enough to cause heart problems, fibrillation or stopped heart function, if you touch the contacts when charged.

Good, simple explanation as to what happens. This is also why most of these older speedlights may burn out the light-duty flash contacts in modern cameras intended to be used with different triggering systems in modern, compatible speedlights. More than a few folks have burned out their expensive digital or film SLR's contacts when trying to use one of these old strobes. Modern stuff's got low voltage triggering circuits that don't pass much current. Which is why I won't use my 64B directly connected to my Nikon FSLR's and DSLR's.

It was adding the www that got rid of the tsk.....
previous post edited to a working link.
I provided the manuals to Rich.

With a VOM one can check the circuit to a degree without a schematic.

Newer electronic flash units put a buffer in the trigger circuit so that a low voltage is seen at the sync connector._________________The best camera ever made is the one that YOU enjoy using and produces the image quality that satifies YOU.